NJ Teen Pleads Guilty To Pope Kill Plot

A New Jersey teenager has admitted plotting to kill Pope Francis when he visited Philadelphia in 2015, federal prosecutors announced Monday.

Santos Colon Jr., 17, pleaded guilty as an adult to attempting to provide material support to terrorists reports ABC. The Lindenwold resident faces up to 15 years in prison, but a sentencing date hasn’t been scheduled.

Colon admitted plotting the assassination during a nearly two-month period in the weeks leading up to the pope’s visit in September 2015, federal prosecutors said. The plot, which wasn’t carried out, involved using a sniper to shoot the pope during a Mass and setting off explosive devices nearby, they said.

Colon engaged someone he thought would be the sniper but was an undercover FBI employee, prosecutors said. He engaged in target reconnaissance with an FBI confidential source and instructed the source to buy materials to make explosive devices, they said.